Fuck Supergirl.

I’ve never been a comics guy. My foray into that world is a result of Buffy Season Eight, Angel: After the Fall, and the current iterations of the two. The success of those series continuations led to Charmed: Season 9 and The X-Files Season 10, both of which I tried really hard to get into, but the massive amount of daily television nonsense I watch eats up all of my reading time. I explain all of this just to say: I’d never even heard of Jessica Jones before Netflix said “We’re gonna make her into a series with Marvel and them.” As I’m sure it’s well known by now, Jessica Jones is the second in a string of five Marvel series Netflix is producing, the first of which was Daredevil. Now, I had seen Ben Affleck do his thing when it was on HBO (back when I lived off my Mom’s cable) and I wasn’t mad at it, so watching the series seemed like the thing to do mostly because of that, but also because of Deborah Ann Woll (if you’ve read my previous posts, you’ve probably picked up on my thing for chicks with power), and especially because of Drew Goddard (the writer of most of my favorite Buffy episodes) who created the series and was going to be the showrunner, but stepped down and was replaced by Steven S. DeKnight who happens to be another Buffy alum. So, seriously, all corners of my globe were directing me to Daredevil. And I’m not mad at my globe’s corners for doing so because I fucking loved Daredevil. If that weren’t reason enough (it was) to watch Jessica Jones, then the bitch in apartment 23 (arguably, one of the best sitcoms ever) was going to do the trick. After the casting announcement was made, it was just a waiting game for the premiere. In the interim came Supergirl.

Sigh. Fuckin’ Supergirl. The series based on the SNL skit making fun of what a female superhero story would be.

I suppose it’s meant for girls. Girl girls. Young pre-teens who need a “good girl” to look up to. Though, why CBS thinks they’re suddenly catering to pre-teens is beyond me. The thing that really gets to me about Supergirl, though, is that it doesn’t actually give a shit about women. Every shot of Calista Flockhart has a ridiculous blurry filter over it, because God forbid a women look her age. And every time Supergirl herself speaks, it’s only to say that she is real extra not Superman, as if standing on her own isn’t possible without making it clear that she’ll never actually be alone because there’s that manly man in her life. (Note: I gave it a more-than-fair chance. Three episodes worth of a fair chance, to be exact, and there was something to be annoyed at in every single one.)

So, there was that piece of garbage making me that much more excited for Jessica Jones. Based on the trailer, is she a proper role model for young girls? She doesn’t give a fuck about what the S on her chest looks like, so I guess not.

But she does tell it like it is, at least.

At this point, the universe had screamed at me enough. I definitely got the hint. But if I’m keeping it really real… this comment sent me over the edge. A chick with power who can kick your entire ass and not give a shit about it… the fact that this was a show I could not not watch was officially cemented. Which brings us to today. Sadly, a day after its release. I, being the perfect, wonderful, amazing husband that I am, had to wait for my husband to be ready to watch it which meant the binge party had to wait.

Being only one episode in, I can surmise that… I am Jessica Jones. By which I mean I can relate to that chick on an epic scale. I can’t fly and I can’t pick up cars, but I sure do understand needing to pass out in order to sleep. Staying away from people so as to not get hurt by them? Me. Using mantras to calm an anxiety attack? All too familiar with that shit. A killer head of thick-ass black hair? Ask my flatiron, gurl.

Jessica is not a bad person, she just doesn’t know it. Her sister (or ex-lover, or college roommate, or clingy ex co-worker… not super clear who she is yet), on the other hand, sees every good side of her that she’s unable or, really, unwilling to. In fact, when she does let it happen, when she lets the smile that crawls onto her face from deep within crack even the slightest bit… things inevitably fall apart. Once upon a time, mystery blonde convinced Jessica to use her super strength for good and, though we’re not given specifics yet, it’s pretty clear that it didn’t end well. Her particular PTSD-worthy trauma is unique in that the person who’s hurt her the most is her. Or, more specifically, the person who hurt her the most did so through her. If you haven’t watched it yet and you have no idea what I mean, allow me to thoroughly spoil with my normal brand of nonsense:

Dr. Who‘s purple now and he controls bitches with his mind, Vampire Diaries compulsion-style. If he says “Don’t move,” expect to eventually piss the bed you happen to be lying in when he said it. If he says “Kill some bitches” and hands you a gun, expect your trigger finger to go wild.

Maybe you’re on episode 13 by now, but I’m not, so I still don’t know exactly what he made Jessica do, but if it’s at all clear from the state of her life and her immediate desire to fly to Hong Kong at the thought of him possibly being back in her life…. it couldn’t have been a whirligig of fun.

And that, my friends, is pretty much the gist of the show. She looks good in black, rocks the hell out of a big, gray scarf, makes her money investigating cases that her psuedo-boss (adulterous, lesbian Trinity) throws her way, she regrets using people for anxiety relieving sex (especially when they’re hot bar-backs whom she knows has a main chick that isn’t her), and then there’s her admittedly slightly inappropriate stalking (that we’ll go ahead and call “investigating”). It’s all coping mechanisms. It’s her trying to get to tomorrow while suffering through her yesterdays. The turning point comes at the end of the episode when, as her assumed track record would have you come to expect, the good she thought she did turned very, very bad. At the metaphoric fork, she chooses the road less traveled and decides to fight back. Rather than add another failed yesterday, she’s gonna calm her damaged mind by listing the streets she grew up on and she’s gonna do it as she fucks up that purple dude so she can sleep into tomorrow. She’s gonna do the damn thing and I defy any viewer to be mad at it.

Any viewer except my husband, of course, who has terrible taste and decided he doesn’t want to watch episode two. What’s great about that is: I don’t have to wait to binge the shit out of the rest of the episodes, so there just might be a “MY MIND IS BLOWN” post about the rest of the series in a couple days. Until then, to sum up: